When using many pieces of furniture and in particular office furniture such as desks or work tables, it is necessary to wire electrical devices into or onto the pieces of furniture. For example, peripheral computer equipment such as monitors, keyboards and computer mice are typically arranged on the tabletops of desks, whereas the computer itself is positioned under the tabletops. The power supply is also normally provided along the floor or from below. The power cables and communication cables are therefore frequently routed from below to the piece of furniture, for example onto a tabletop of a desk.
Irrespective of the wiring, height-adjustable pieces of furniture, such as height-adjustable desks, particularly in the form of workstations, have been known for some time. The possibility of adjusting a worktop of the workstation in height, i.e. vertically, allows the workstation to be adapted to the body size of an individual working at the workstation, which can be an important prerequisite for an ergonomic working posture.
Whereas height adjustability in the past was often only possible to a relatively limited extent, with the aim of compensating for size differences within the range of the statistically relatively small standard deviation of body sizes of sitting adults, desks today, for example, are frequently equipped with extended height adjustability, making it possible to work in a standing position when necessary. Since prolonged working while standing may be perceived as unpleasant and/or tiring, it is important to be able to quickly adjust the worktop between heights that are suitable for working while standing and ones that are suitable for working while sitting without complications.
To be able to guarantee safety when using in particular motorised height-adjustable pieces of furniture, equipping these with a safety mechanism is known.
Known safety mechanisms comprise a sensor, which measures a deformation or a displacement of two components of a piece of furniture with respect to one another. The sensor records a change between the components which is caused by a resistance against one of the components. For example, such sensors can be arranged between the frame and the tabletop of a desk. If the tabletop comes into contact, for example, with a resistance such as part of a user's body during the height adjustment, then the sensor records the associated change between the frame and tabletop. The automatic height adjustment of the desk is then immediately stopped by the safety mechanism.
However, difficulties can arise from the previously mentioned cabling of electrical device in such height-adjustable pieces of furniture. In particular, adjusting the piece of furniture upwards can lead to a tensile force acting on a cable and impairs this. Especially in the case of motorised height-adjustable pieces of furniture or tables, tensile forces can act on the cables, which damage or even tear these. For example, when using a height-adjustable desk, a cable can be obstructed by an item unintentionally placed thereon, such as a floor lamp, when the tabletop is in a lower position. If the tabletop is then raised, the cable is then clamped between the object placed thereon and the electrical device on the tabletop until it is damaged or tears or the electrical device falls from the tabletop. On the one hand, this can pose a risk for the user of the table and, on the other hand, items such as the electrical devices can be damaged in the process.
The object of the following invention is therefore to propose a height-adjustable piece of furniture or a component thereof, with which the safety in respect of the cable on or guided to the piece of furniture can be guaranteed.